In the Philippines, especially in the capital Manila, it only gets maximum 1 hour additional daytime during summer solstice and maximum 50 minute additional night time during winter solstice.
As you go south especially in Cebu, it only gets 30 minutes or less additional daytime/nighttime during summer/winter solstices.
And as you go further south like in Davao, it almost experiences equivalent day and night for the whole year (like an equinox for the whole year, with a very little difference of having 5–10 minute additional day/night during seasonal solstices).
Observing summertime DST won’t be beneficial for any of these major economic hub cities.
The only observation I experienced in Manila is that during winter solstice, bus terminals remain barely occupied at 5 am (because 5 am is still pitch black). But during summer solstice, you can already feel the crowd and rush hour in the bus terminals at 5 am because it’s already civil dawn (sun is still down but the sky is already bright blue). Despite of this, it is still tolerable and DST is definitely not necessary.
DST was experimented multiple times in this country to save energy consumption as the Philippines had multiple energy crises before. But as soon as these energy facilities improved, which they were able to solve in a year, they abolished DST immediately.
For example, during Manila solstices:
Summer Solstice
Sunrise: 5:30 am
Sunset: 6:30 pm
Total daylight hours: 13 hours
Assuming I go to my office at 7 am and it doesn’t change anytime of the year, preparation and travel time would take 1 hour, so let’s say I wake up at 6 am.
Without DST, I would wake up at 6 am with the sun already risen, i wont need artificial light. Starting 6:30 pm, i would start using my artificial light because sun had already set. This would save 30 minutes of using artificial light because I didn’t use it in the morning.
With DST, I would wake up at 6 am with the sky still dark (although getting brighter because it’s nautical dawn), but regardless i would use artificial light because it still wasn’t that bright. I would leave home at 6:30 am meaning I already used my artificial lights for 30 minutes during this morning. Starting 6:30 pm, the sun would still be in the sky, still 1 hour from sunset, so I wont use my artificial lights until 7:30 pm. Which means in this case, I would be saving 1 hour of using artificial light. [feel free to correct me if my computation is wrong]
Although DST might be a little bit helpful for Manila, the significant difference is still not much, especially for a country where there are lots of call center industries that operate night shift.
And since the Philippines follow a single time zone, DST won’t definitely make sense in the South like in Cebu or Davao (nearer to equator which do not experience more than 30 mins daytime seasonal changes). It won’t benefit the South at all.
If you argue to just use DST in the North, I’m sure every Filipino would hate using two different time zones in a small, lengthwise positioned country like the Philippines.
In the northernmost part of the Philippines however, like in Batanes, they experience extra 1.5 hours of daytime during the summer solstice, so DST might benefit them but Batanes is far from being considered an economic hub. And if our northern neighbors like Taiwan and Japan can live without DST, then so can we.
In short, DST is not beneficial for the whole Philippines. Having two timezones (north Philippines using DST and south using only the standard) will definitely make the system more chaotic.
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